My car is possessed. For a couple of days, it would start on one rotor and then after 20 seconds it would pick up the other. It ran well when hot. I was sure I had blown an apex seal. I did a compression test, by the book, and it was fine. After I put the plugs in the car ran fine, for a day. The next day it ran okay, but the idle was very rough, but not all the time, sometimes hot, sometimes cold. Yesterday I started it and it sounded like the engine timing was 30° retarded and it was smokey and rough but after a few throttle blips it cleaned up a bit. I took it around the block, thrashed it mercilessly, and it ran perfect when I got back and had a silky smooth idle. I should mention that I changed the plugs a month or so ago and I am POSITIVE everything is hooked up correctly...

What the hell is going on?? Could it be my oxygen sensor? The manual does not list this as a cause for any engine problems BTW. Would the TPS do this? I am certain the next time I start it there will be some completely different scenario so please give me your opinions before I set the thing on fire!

 

check timing, maybe crank angle sensor, i know you said it, but check spark plug wires arent crossed, check tps, it will drive car nuts if its wrong, and it the first thing i check with a faulty running car. lastly, what abot fuel? maybe that side's fuel injector is sticking? is it old w/ high miles? the tps and crank sensor are simple 2 minute inspections.

no, not o2 sensor, that only works at crusing speed, you can unplug it and you wouldn't really notice a difference.

 

check timing, maybe crank angle sensor, i know you said it, but check spark plug wires arent crossed, check tps, it will drive car nuts if its wrong, and it the first thing i check with a faulty running car. lastly, what abot fuel? maybe that side's fuel injector is sticking? is it old w/ high miles? the tps and crank sensor are simple 2 minute inspections.

no, not o2 sensor, that only works at crusing speed, you can unplug it and you wouldn't really notice a difference.

maybe AFM is taking a ****? that will also drive your car nuts if its bad

 

oops, double post. dman slow cpu

 

Could it be possible that it's the coolant jacket? Happened to me! same symptoms. perfect compression. it all depends where it is broken.

 

by coolant jacket, do you mean coolant is being introduced into the cumbustion chamber? if so then he could take his car to a local radatior shop or inspection place and tect the coolant for hydrocarbons. otherwise, i dont think there's any way to tell the coolant jacket is bad without engine removal and dissassembly

 

maybe a stuck apex seal at first, I dunno..

and my O2 sensor isn't even sending a signal to the ECU and I run 13.7 @ 104 in my '90 TurboII.. so that's probably not the problem.

 

Timing is spot on. I thought about the injector, but intermittent failure? I don't think so. I will check the TPS and AFM. Thanks for the 411 on the O2 sensor....

 

^

 

It's a bad coolant seal, it's probably leaking coolant into the champer which is preventig it from starting up (happened to my friends vert) on the rear rotor, and after a few minutes it fires up on that rotor and runs like a champ, he put a good 5,000 miles on it like that until it finally ate an apex seal If you want to save yourself some money during the rebuild, do it now, else, drive it till she dies!

 

I hope you are wrong! I just need to get one more year out of the rotary....just one more....I got the aluminum V-8 but I need everything else still to do the swap!!

 

I should add that the car has 23K on a rebuild, and has run flawlessly since it was put in. Hard for me to believe the coolant seal is already gone....

 

Put the three extra grounds on the car, it runs like NEW. Thanks to the RX-7 Gods!!!

 

i knew my coolant jackets and seals were fuct cause i had oil in my rad....that couldnt be good....lol