newbie test driving, few questions
 

well I'm seriously looking into getting a fc n/a and starting to look around and test drive. i have a few questions though.

the car i drove today was a 88 gxl it had a whirring noise almost sounded like a turbo except the car was n/a, i'd never driven a rotary before so i didn't know if this was normal or what was going on, it seemed to go away when the clutch pedal was pressed... my dad said it oculd be the throw outbearing?

i know rotaries sound different form pistons.. but i didn't think a whir was the sound it'd make...

also the car had teh 5th and 6th port wired open, i didn'tknow if this is good or bad for the engine or not, i'm brnad new and i wanna learn, andi wanna make surei get a car that's not gonna shit out rigth away...

it also woudl kinda of pulse when it idled is this normal and what could be causing it?

also i have emmisions testing were i live, how much trouble will i have trying to pass with an unmodded FC?

but i loved the car, before i just wanted an rx-7 now i feel like i almost need one, hehe i just wasn't sure about that sound...

any suggestions or comments woudl be great, i wanna learn but I'm not sure where to start

I had no trouble passing emission test with my n/a if the car is in good shape you shouldnt

Re: newbie test driving, few questions
 

Hes right.

See above. Its not going to hurt anything. Supposibly takes away from low end torque but makes more hp up top. I dont see how it will make more up top, but whatever. Lots of things. Main ones being a mis adjusted tps, faulty/dirty bac valve or a vacuum leak. If the cats are intact it should be pretty easy.

Throw out bearings arent fun to change (gotta drop the tranny) for a damn near worthless part (30-50$). How much is the seller asking? Does the car smoke at all? What about when driving? Upper rpms? Color of smoke (if any)? When the car is cold (and make sure its cold) pop off the upper rad cap and turn the car on. There should be no bubbles and it should not gurgle. Some coolant might slowly flow out (not a problem). On aaroncake.net there is a write up some where for what to look for when buying a NA.

thanks for the reply,

he's asking $1500,

he said he jsut replaced teh tps but it needed to be adjusted but he wasn't sure how to do that...

he also jsut replaced teh throw out bearing so i guess it was not installed properly, and i jsut learnign ot work on cars i'm not sure replacing throwout bearing would be teh best starting point, but you do gotta start somewhere... but we jsut had a bad experience replacing the cutch on my old car, they sold us the wrong part and it rubbed a hole in the transmission and ruineded teh transmission because you could not keep oil in there... ten we tookit to a tranny specialist they repalced teh tranny andteh clutch and the same thign happened again...

we did not see any smoke, excpet when we turned it off alosmt like oil dripped on part of teh exhaust though

and yeah we have that write up, and we forgot abotu the radiator check until too late and we kinda made a mess with that hehe...



but htantks for the help

Re: Re: newbie test driving, few questions
 

I have also heard it takes away a bit of low end TQ. I have not heard of making more HP up top though. The way I understand it is, wiring them open allows you to remove the air pump, ACV, cats, split air pipe. Then they will stay open after being wired and only lose a little bit of TQ instead of them never opening and loseing (from what I have heard) about 20hp up top.

Thats the way I understand it at least, may be wrong though.

Re: newbie test driving, few questions
 

That points the the transmission input shaft or countershaft bearings.

The 80% good news - changing to synthetic gear oil makes these transmissions much quieter/smoother/better.

The 20% bad news - you may need tranny before long.

Maybe knock off $100 so you will feel better if it goes.
Good used NA trannys run $150-400.

Have you read through the sticky threads at the top of this forum?
I wish I had when I first bought my 87.

Re: newbie test driving, few questions
 

This is usually done because they have stuck closed or otherwise don't work. The ports are supposed to close for low-end torque, and then open up for high-end power. With them wired open, the engine will lose low-end torque, but the high-end power will remain the same. You can't wire the ports any further open than stock, so there is no gain in doing so, but it is better than having them stuck closed, which will retain the low-end torque but kill the high-end power. In summary, this is a band-aid fix, not a performance modification. However, it will not hurt anything but low-end performance.

Although you have had some good advice, transmission noises are difficult to diagnose. You should take the car to a good Mazda shop for an inspection.

See Aaron's site for an excellent RX-7 buying guide:
http://www.aaroncake.net/RX-7/tech1.htm