Leviathan

Ok let me start from the beginning so mebe some of you can figure this out. I have an 86 N/A auto rx7, and I bought it back in february. It ran just perfectly for quite awhile, I had 2 get the catalyctic converter installed, along/w mufflers, but other than that it was doing great. About a month later I noticed I could smell gasoline when I was driving so I took it somewhere and it turns out I had a fuel leak. Probably my biggest mistake was taking it to one of these brake places. They seemed to flat out not know what they were doing at all; I even heard one of the mechanics argueing with their manager saying he didn't know how to work on it. I should have gotten my car and left when I heard that but I didn't. So anyway, they finish the car about a "week" later, and when I get it I end up getting stranded at a restaurant the next day. I figured it might have been flooded but when I took it back 2 em they said the secondary coil quit so they replaced it. They also gave it a tune-up. So I get it back again... And it seems to be doing ok for a couple weeks when I start noticing small hesitations on the interstate and usually when it would start acting up the car would die once I came to a complete stop. So I would start the car again and it would die when I put it into forward or reverse. The car had it's 'spells', and would act up some days, sometimes it would drive perfectly. So one day I thought I would take a short trip to see if it would straighten out. BIG MISTAKE! I got halfway 2 my destination and the cars power just suddenly turns off. It didn't die, but when I pressed the pedal I got nothing. Then about 5-8 seconds later the power would kick back in. I had to turn around, and the car kept doing this on and off the whole way. So I figured i'd park it and worry with it later. Well several weeks later I didn't really work on it, but me and my friend decided 2 buy one of those performance air filters and install it for the heck of it. I installed it, and weird, all of a sudden it was like all of the problems were gone. No more hesitations or bad idle... I did some research and found the possibilities could be back TPS or ground. Well we checked and my TPS was fine, the ground seems to be ok but I tried taking it all off and there's this stripped bolt in the very back thats hard to get to and simply won't come off with my tools and limited experience Anyway, the cars been doing great for about 2 months or so, but recently it was getting hard to startup. Finally I was getting off of work and it wouldnt start at all. It turns out that it was flooded because I eventually got it 2 start and smoke filled the entire parking lot, which soon went away. But after getting it home it wouldn''t start back up. I'm fairly confident that's it not flooded this time. I went throught the un-flooding procedure, I first started off by taking out the main fuse and holding the pedal; I did this about 5 times and it didn't start. So I took out the fuse+spark plugs and poured 1ounce of ATF in the two bottom plug holes just like the manual said and still no results. The motor IS turning when I try to start it so it cant be the starter or anything like that. I guess mebe the primary coil since that brake place replaced the secondary one already. Crap, I've typed alot. Anywayz, I'm pretty sure the hesitations aren't going to go away just by replacing the air filter... If anyone has any ideas I haven't heard as to what the hesitation problem might have been and why it won't start I'd appreciate it.

RRTEC

iTrader: (13)

That rear stripped bolt is probably the ground bolt, is it under the upper manifold?

Satring issue/flooding, could be leaky injectors.. Check your oil and see if it smells like gas. Good luck.

Leviathan

Yea that stripped bolt is right there behind the oil filter. I'll check the smell of my oil tomorrow morning, but I just had the oil changed like 2 weeks ago. And I forgot 2 mention that I had em put in synthetic oil and I just recently discovered we shouldn't use synthetic. Faq said something about ash deposits?

Battleborn7

Check ground on engine as well as your alternator.Cars dying while driving with no power sounds like alternator trouble.Check wiring on that as well.Its free and can only help you.If you have the equipment try to test the resistance on the coils before you dive in and buy a new one.Those bad boys arent cheap but they also dont go out as often as youd think.Very reliable oem parts.