I drive an 88 TII. Last night getting on the freeway while shifting into fourth I heard a "clunk" and after that the car had loss of power, really rough idle almost bad enough to give me brain damage...lol, and it sounds like poop. I started the car this morning and it just sounds horrible. Rough starting and idling and such. Did my motor blow? Or could it be something else? Please help. Thank you all,
Robert

 

you probly want to start off by doing a compression check cause from the way your describing it, it sounds like you might have lost a seal do you have any mods on it or is it mostly stock

 

Hard to tell from your description what it might be. Do a compression check to determine if it is, in fact, your engine. If you don't know how to do a compression check on a rotary engine, do a search of the forum and elsewhere (see below) and do some reading to find out how.

Edit: Here are a couple of links:
http://www.teamfc3s.org/info/articles/compression.html
http://rx7.subbuteoclub.com/myfaq.shtml

 

From the sound of it, definetely sounds like you have lost a seal. But if you do not have a compression checker, than my best advice would be to take one spark plug out of each chamber. Take the egi fuse out of your relay block. While you crank the motor you should get 3 consecutive pulses on each rotor, like a toy train. THey are loud burst of air. If you have on chamber doing very whimpering pulses than you have lost compression. I would do this with someone else turning the key so that you get a very good indication while looking down upon the holes.

I am not sure about the ''clunk'' though. That is a new one to me. Usually there i sno soulnd when losing a seal, or at least any that i have ever heard, they typically just go without warning or any indication.

 

What does it usually cost to replace the seals?

 

Well now we know you are a newbee to rx-7's! No disrespect,lol! YOU cannot just replace the seals. YOU are going to need a coplete rebuild. HAve you owned your 7 long? I would suggest that you contact Kevin Landers of Rotary Ressurection. He does rebuild while still using alot of the stock internals, but one thing he does replace are the apex seals.

It sounds like thats whats happened to your t2, and that sucks. But, I see that you are from California, and being from Phoenix myself, I can tell you that you will not be short on finding yourself a good rotary mechanic.


But I will Tell you that you are looking at at least 2500 to 3500 dollar job for this procedure. MAybe more if you have possibly damaged your rotor housings due to the busted seal or seals bouncing around in there. But it unlikely since you did not drive the car much.

But all in all THe best advice I can give you would be to us eyour patience when shopping for a mechanic, and never be afraid to ask questions. YOU have yourself a fun 7. But if you gotrying to be ''cheap'' on a rebuild you will have nothing but constant problems and a thin bank account.

THese are not hondas. And i dont mean that in a bad way. But you have to use a different approach when dealing with these cars, because they are ''different'' alltogether.

 

If you can pull the motor yourself and ship it to Kevin he can probrably do a basic rebuild for around the $1K mark or there is always the Jspec option.