RX7_Nick

lol, seems like I'm making a post here every 6 months... aye. So I'm about to head back to school- I'm out a week cause my grandfather passed away... was out of town for his funeral and such. Been a rough past few days. Anyways, I wash my car before heading back to school, I start it and let it idle so it's warm for the drive back. Idled for about 15-20 minutes. Upon starting, turned over real slow, almost like it was low on battery, but it fired right up... this is why I let it idle in the driveway...

Also, a funny thing I noticed while it was idling in the driveway and I was in the middle of washing it- doors and hood were closed, lights were on but the headlights were down... all the sudden my headlights pop up on their own- they don't turn on, they just popped up, then about one minute later they went down on their own. Strange!

So I'm leaving home and heading for the gas station. Around 3000 RPMs I notice all of my warning lights start to illuminate, and they continued to get brighter as the RPMs rose, upon shifting, they went completely off. I noticed this two or three times.

I get to the gas station, shut it off, give it 17 gallons of 93- what it was originally tuned on. It cranks and starts just like normal. The warning lights don't illuminate upon acceleration.

So I get to the onramp to the highway. Having it sit for awhile, I figure maybe I just need to let the engine run it's course- so I take it up to 6500 RPM in first, shift to second, and I'm climbing to about 4500 RPM and it sputters, so I ease my foot off the pedal. Then the engine seems to act like it's getting power and losing power rapidly- and then the RPM guage goes way out of whack, hops down to 2500, then 4000, then 3200- it's just all over the place and skips to random readings every split second. So I take the car out of gear, RPM guage just falls like it's not reading anything, and the engine slowly spins down until it shuts off.

It cranks like normal, but just won't fire. This is a rebuilt engine with about 13k-14k miles on it. Didn't sound like losing an apex seal- been through that before and that's a terrible experience. This was like an instant power cut in and out... it was strange.

Any ideas? Appreciate it in advance.

Thanks,
Nick

Oh and note on the side- I've had this problem for awhile but never bothered to ask about it... my windshield wipers only work on the setting before the highest... Mist, INT, and II don't work at all. Even if the wipers are mid-wipe they'll stop dead if I change the setting from I to anything else. Any ideas?

This is a 1991 RX-7 Convertible by the way.

Wankel7

With the tach needle bouncing around like that while you are cruising along. Sounds like you have an ignition problem.

I had the same issue on my Haltech. It turned out to be interference from a noisy alternator.

Basically, the alternator was spitting out so much EFI that it was jacking with the signal wire that left the CAS and went to my Haltech.

I would try shielding the wires coming from the CAS with some foil and grounding the foil at one point. Also, it would not hurt to run extra grounds from the engine to the firewall.

James

RX7_Nick

Thanks! I'll give that a shot, appreciate it.